Identifying collection images with special events

Abstract

A method for associating event times or time periods with digital images in a collection for determining if a digital image is of interest, includes storing a collection of digital images each having an associated capture time; comparing the associated capture time in the collection with a special event time to determine if a digital image in the collection is of interest, wherein the comparing step includes calculation of a special event time associated with a special event based on the calendar time associated with the special event and using such information to perform the comparison step; and associating digital images of interest with the special event.

Description

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application is a continuation of U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 11 / 178,992 filed Jul. 11, 2005, entitled “Identifying Collection Images with Special Events” by Gallagher et al, the disclosure of which is incorporated herein.[0002]Reference is made to commonly assigned U.S. Patent Application Ser. No. 11 / 116,729, filed Apr. 28, 2005 (now U.S. Pat. No. 7,522,773), entitled “Using Time in Recognizing Persons in Images” by Gallagher et al and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 143,541 filed Jun. 2, 2005, entitled “Using Photographer Identity to Classify Images” by Gallagher et al, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0003]The present invention related to an improved way to identify digital images from a collection, making use of special events.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0004]With the advent of digital photography, consumers are amassing large media collections of digital images and videos. For purpo...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

"The present invention provides an improved way to identify and label digital images from a collection of digital images. This is achieved by storing a collection of digital images and videos with associated capture time, and comparing the capture time with a special event time to determine if the image is of interest. The special event time is calculated based on the calendar time associated with the special event and used to perform the comparison. Additionally, the invention allows for automatic labeling of digital images captured by a digital capture device by transferring and storing calendar information in the device, and capturing and storing a digital image. This makes it easier to search and identify relevant digital images in a collection."

Problems solved by technology

As a consequence, the organization and retrieval of images and videos is already a problem for the typical consumer.

Currently, the length of time spanned by a typical consumer's digital image collection is only a few years.

The organization and retrieval problem will continue to grow as the length of time spanned by the average digital image and video collection increases.

However, there is no description of assigning meaningful labels to images or sets of images.

This method cannot provide for the fact that for many people, many national holidays are not observed.

Furthermore, since may consumer images are taken on occasions that are not associated with national holidays (such as the birthdays of family members, or vacation trips), this method cannot provide useful labels for most consumer photos.

Their method does not provide for automatic annotation of images.

The method does not provide for automatic annotation of images.

Images